Working with colored cookie dough!

Quite awhile ago I ran across a tutorial for a beautiful cookie that was made with layers of colored cookie dough. I always kept it in the back of my mind knowing I wanted to try it someday. After I saw a set of cookies on Facebook, made by The Cookie Monger, I knew this was the time to try it. What better time to make fun colored cookies than for Easter.

The cookies posted by Mensaje en una galleta were made with several colors of dough. I chose to try it with just one color at a time. Her tutorial is easily translated using Google Translate but I will outline the steps to make the dough and how to bake the cookies.

I used my favorite sugar cookie recipe rather than try her recipe. I feel fairly certain that this technique will work with any sugar cookie recipe.

Divide your dough into as many colors as you want to make. I used three colors dividing my dough into approximately 7 ounce balls of dough. Put one ball of dough back into your mixer bowl and start adding the color. Start slow because you can always add more if you want a more intense color. Mix the color into the dough until it is thoroughly mixed, adding more color when needed. One thing I learned was that the color will be lighter when baked so make the colors a little deeper than you want them. I just wiped my mixer bowl out after each color rather than wash and dry it (lazy that day!) I did the pink dough first, then the blue and then the green so that if there was a little color left in the bowl it wouldn’t impact the color too much.

Once the dough is colored refrigerate for an hour or two or up to 3 days. You may also freeze the dough at this point.

In the tutorial that I was following, the main difference between her cookies and the way most of us make cookies is that she baked them twice. If I am understanding correctly (her blog is in Spanish), the double baking makes a crisper cookie and it doesn’t brown the cookie leaving you with a vibrant cookie all the way through. I tried it her way and the conventional way. What I discovered is that the cookies baked twice were indeed more vibrant and crisper. I thought they were delicious and a little different than what I usually make, even though the recipe is the same. When I baked the cookies once, the bottoms were slightly brown and the cookies were softer. It was like I had two different cookies.

Roll the chilled dough out to your desired thickness (I rolled mine out to about 1/4") and cut into your desired shapes.

Bake cookies for about 8 minutes or just until the tops no longer look wet. The tutorial I was using didn't list a temperature or a time because she says that all ovens are different. She is right. You have to know your oven. My cookie recipe calls for 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. I tried a few different times and 8 minutes is what worked in my oven.

When done baking the first time, remove them from the oven and let them sit for 5 minutes. Then turn your oven off and put them back in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool completely and then decorate as usual. It seems like it's a fiddly process but I think the results were well worth it.

You bake them the first time until they look dry on top. In my oven that took about 8 minutes. Then you take them out of the oven and let them sit on the cookie sheet, out of the oven, for 5 minutes. Turn the oven off and put the cookie sheet back in the oven for 20 minutes. So, watch the first batch until you notice they no longer look wet and note the time. Then you can set your timer for the rest of them and not have to watch over your oven 🙂 Good luck and let me know if you have any other questions.